Fragments
by jellobellybean
Summary: Something occurs to change the dynamic of Derek and Casey's relationship. Casey boards a plane to Egypt - to see De Nile of course - and Derek does his very best to get under her skin and get her to snap out of her usual Casey-funk
1. the Deed

Disclaimer: I don't own Life With Derek, or the characters, much to my dismay /

She thinks she may finally have forgotten how to breathe.

This is how it begins:

Derek's sitting on her bed, nothing out of the ordinary, and they're doing the usual insult/name-calling routine. But somewhere between the jabs of 'princess' and 'Neanderthal' he moves from his safe, distant position to one much, much nearer to her. Much, much nearer. So close, in fact, that she can practically taste the peppermint and chocolate on his breathe, and his Old-Spice cologne begins to suffocate her. And this too, is not out of the ordinary for them. What happens next, though, is. His scent is so over-powering that her internal Derek-Alarm shuts off, and the sensible part of her brain flees somewhere into South America. And, South America being as far from Canada as it is, the part of her brain that remains politely forgets the existence of the sensible section, and urges her to move several steps forward. Her muscles, being obedient and unaware of the awful Deed they are about help commit, comply, and lo and behold, Casey kisses Derek.

Of course, in the aftermath, Casey casually 'forgets' that she initiated the Deed and places the blame completely on Derek. Because he is an ungrateful, selfish, disgusting sexist pervert and would do anything to cause a Casey-freakout. So it's his fault! He did this on purpose! He clearly knew how her brain fogged up when he moved into the 5 ft by 5 ft Derek Free Zone and he charged beyond it into the 2 ft by 2 ft Derek Danger Zone just to make things that much worse!

But returning to the actual Deed.

So Casey kisses Derek. It starts as a (relatively) innocent (almost) sisterly peck on the (not quite) cheek, but Derek moves his head and suddenly they're full-on making out. Like, his tongue is down her throat and he's sucking on her bottom lip and then her neck and his hands are everywhere, and so are hers, and Oh God when he starts kissing her neck, all rational thought goes completely out the window, and Casey thinks, what the hell, how much worse can this get (Big Mistake: so, so, so much worse). So she starts tugging on his shirt, and so that comes off, and hers follows pretty quickly too, but that's not enough for either of them because the skin on skin friction is like heaven, but there's not enough, so there goes her bra, and his pants, and her shorts, and before she even realizes what's going on, his mouth is burning a trail from her collarbone to her left breast, across to the right and then down her stomach to her left hip and then her sensible-but-slightly-sexy light pink lacy underwear is being ripped off, and she almost loses her balance. His chuckle of "Klutzilla" registers several seconds too late, because right as she's about to retort, his mouth is on her and he's eating her out and she can't speak anymore. She clutches at his head, fingers tangled in his red-brown curls and she thinks this is why he's got all those blonde bimbos (plus Emily) lusting after him. She can't really blame those girls anymore.

And just as she's about to hit the metaphorical ceiling, his mouth is back on hers and he starts pushing her back towards her bed, but she decides he can't win this, she's going to show him what her mouth can do too. She sucks on his neck -yeah, his hickey is twice as bad as the one he gives her, but she's too proud of it, what ends up being the first of many markings of Her Territory, to think about her usual "Derek-you're-disgusting-why-do-you-let-all-your-whores-eat-your-neck-like-they're-animals" routine- and moves slowly down his chest and those incredible abs to where his boxers and skin meet. He begins to protest – "Casey, you don't have to prove anyth-" but a groan cuts this off, because she's pulled the boxers down and gripped him, hard, at the base, and her tongue is tracing a path from his balls to the tip of his shaft. She looks up at him, eye-contact, as her mouth goes up and down, and he's clearly losing control, if his moans and "Fuck, Casey" 's are any indication, and she deep-throats him until he's gasping and she knows he's close, but right before she can decide whether to let him come, he pulls her up and they're kissing again, desperately clutching at each other's bodies. He all but throws her on the bed and crawls on top of her, and every movement and every touch is like searing pain, but so delightful that for days after just thinking about the Deed makes her wet and breathless.

When he thrusts into her, all the way, the pleasure is so great that she can't help but arch up into him and cry out. But it's not a victory for him because he groans too, so Casey doesn't feel like she conceded anything and she closes her eyes and clutches at his back, nails tearing at his skin. He buries his face in her neck, but she moves to kiss him as he starts moving faster, figuring if his tongue is down her throat she can't say anything stupid in this hazy sex-crazed state she's in. Their kisses turn sloppy as they both get closer, and she starts shaking just as he bites out that he's about to come. She sees stars and can't stop the moan of "De-rek" that comes out of her mouth, and after they both come down from the high, he pulls out of her, and curls her into his chest and whispers, "That's the only way you should be breaking my name in half."

Just before she falls asleep, still spooned into Derek, her mind begins a slow return to sanity and she realizes- this Deed? It has the potential to turn everything upside down. And just as she's ready to pull away and have a Casey-Panic-Attack, Derek, who must have some sort of super-sense, smoothes his hand across her stomach and mumbles into her shoulder "Stop thinking so hard, I can hear you overanalyzing this. Sleep and you can freak out on me in the morning."

Well. Casey thinks then that maybe she hadn't given him enough credit in the Brainiac Department. She'd have to investigate that in the morning. So she snuggles into Derek and falls asleep, postponing her panic for the first time ever, but as of that moment, definitely, definitely not the last.

/

Anddddd that's the very first chapter of my very first fanfiction ever ReviewReviewReview please- how can I learn if I don't get any input?


	2. aftermath

_I say things I don't mean and hope you'll realize what I really want to say._

She avoids him for a week.

Or, well, _tries_ to avoid him for a week. It proves impossible, seeing as they live in the same house, and he drives her to school. So her "ignoring" is really more like Casey drawing up a New Daily Routine to make the least possible contact with Derek. It looks like this:

Wake up half an hour earlier than usual, to get to the bathroom without the usual Fighting-Derek-For-The-Bathroom bit (because Derek in the mornings, no shirt, morning wood…..yeah even Casey, Queen of the Naïve and Oblivious can see how avoiding further Deeds would be harder in this situation), get dressed and eat at lightning speed and lock herself in her room to "study" until the last possible moment, when she quickly emerges, climbs into the Prince (god, that moldy old death-trap) and opens a textbook and puts in her ear-buds to avoid talking to Derek on the way to school. Entirely new paths to classrooms were drawn up specifically to avoid bumping into Derek during the day. After-school, she walks to the library and stays there so late the librarian has to shoo her out, and gets rides home from Noel (ugh…..he keeps expecting a kiss good-night, *shiver*). She misses dinner this way, which she doesn't mind but her mother shoots her worried looks and even Lizzie looks confused and curious. Then once again, lock up in her room to "study" and she goes to bed earlier than she's used to.

This is all mapped out, written out, perfectly organized, and things go well the first three days (she starts the Morning After The Deed, thus avoiding the Potentially Awkward Talk When Derek Resumes Being an Ass-Hat), she presumes because Derek must be embarrassed that he slept with his keener step-sister, and it takes some time for him to become re-oriented with himself. He must have caught some Casey-Cooties. But, on the fourth day the library is closed for some stupid council meeting, and Noel is at ballet or poetry club or something girly like that, and Emily is out sick so she can't even hide out at her house! And Derek, master at finding Casey, is waiting at her locker at the end of the day. She sees him there and tries to swivel and go off somewhere, but she really really needs her history book because there's a big exam in two weeks and she hasn't even STARTED studying and she has to get to her locker NOW before that disgusting girl and her wrestler boyfriend come to make-out right in front of Casey's locker. But of course, Derek spots her and then it's too late to turn around because she's not a coward and he's smirking at her, daring her to walk away. Soooooo she walks right up to her locker, casually pretends Derek's not there, and goes about organizing her books. But Derek, who's a sneaky, sneaky boy, and clearly emboldened by the Thing That Transpired The Other Night, crosses over the boundaries of her comfort zone and stands rightttttt behind her, hands creeping across her stomach, head on her shoulder. Damn it, why did she have to be so logical and strategically pick the locker in the area she knew less people crowded? It's just the janitors in their creepy little hide-out closet, and a couple socially nonexistent freshmen who are too scared of Derek to even look at him, and so Derek could not care less if they witness any sort of Derek Becoming Weird And Creeping On Casey in A Clearly Sexual Manner. So he's closed in on her from the back, and he's clearly about to make some sort of move to kiss her or….something, but right at the critical moment, the Wrestler and his girl walk down the hall, and Derek jumps away like he's been burned.

Casey lets out a shaky sigh of relief just as Derek's face settles into a scowl. Win for Casey! Crisis averted.

The next morning, Casey wakes up late because Derek somehow sneaks into her room and changes her alarm time, so the Struggle for The Bathroom Fight seems inevitable, but Casey is so reluctant to face a mostly naked Derek that she decides to do something she's avoided for weeks and weeks and weeks – she accepts Noel's offer to drive her to school. So she skips a shower, sits through a painful car ride with Noel as he tries to grab her hand at every stop sign and red light, and practically runs into the girls' locker room to shower and blow dry her hair as fast as she can. It's pretty safe to say Noel is more puppy-dog eyed than usual, and Derek is scowlier than usual. Whoops.

Of course, this happens on a Friday, which happens to be the one week day Derek doesn't have work, and which also happens to be the Friday before her mom and George go away on a mini-vacation for three weeks, and the Friday before Lizzie goes to soccer camp for a month and Edwin goes on a school trip with the magic club and Marti gets shipped off to Abby's till George and Nora come home. Ohhhhhhhh dear. It's not much of a relief to Casey that while Edwin and Marti and Liz leave on that Sunday, their parents leave on Tuesday because Casey and Derek have been enlisted to make sure the three munchkins get everything ready before they leave.

Needless to say, Casey's not looking forward to spending oodles of time with Derek for two days before spending…..even more oodles of time with Derek for three weeks.

She speeds to her locker after school and spends three minutes breathing deep breathes and counting to ten over and over again, trying to stop a panic attack. Derek come at exactly the wrong moment, when she's sliding to the floor and about to start crying. Really, Casey's not sure things could get worse. Because every time she looks at him she thinks about what happened, and she can barely suppress the images that cross her mind. She wants nothing more than to freak out on him (preferably after throwing herself at Derek for a repeat of the Deed) but she's Casey; sensible, logical, and excellent at pretending complicated things didn't transpire.

So Derek sees her falling apart on the dirty school hall floor, and instead of throwing some insult at her like she expects, he shoots her a concerned look and sits down next to her. For the next ten minutes, he holds her close and rubs her back as she cries into his shoulder, thoroughly soaking through his shirt. Once she calms down a bit, he pushes her back to look her in the eyes and clears his throat.

"Casey."

"Please don't start Derek, I'm barely holding it together. I'm sorry I've been avoiding you all week but I couldn't face you after what happened because I'm not one of your blond bimbos and I refuse to be a notch in your bedpost and that's exactly what I have let myself become and I can't face it, I can't face the smug look on your face. It's not fair, and I won't let you humiliate me completely so please if we could just pretend-"

He cuts her off just as she begins winding up to the Big Speech she's got prepared for this, in which she was going to outline how they were to pretend the Deed didn't happen and go back to hating each other. But she's really not ready to hear shit from Derek. Really. Especially not now, not after….

So she shakes him off and continues.

"Really Derek. Let's just not talk about this. It was obviously a mistake, and it's never going to happen again. So let's just pretend it never happened. Go back to your blond bimbos, you deserve them anyways."

And somewhere during this sentence, Derek's face shuts off. Like, there was something there Casey can't place, but once she gets to 'mistake' and definetly by 'bimbos' it's gone, and Derek's face is blank. His expression hardens, and he shoves away from her and stands up.

"Whatever Case. Typical. I'll just do what you say, since you clearly know what's best. Just get your school shit and let's go. I don't even wanna be here with you right now, the faster we get home the better."

She doesn't get it. Why's he so mad? She basically just said exactly what she thought Derek would want to hear. But before she can ask him what his deal is, he turns and stalks off down the hall. She has to rush to get all her books and follow him, because she knows he's not above leaving her behind.

Friday afternoon is weird. Derek practically avoids Casey, and she doesn't get it. She thought he'd be happy she didn't do the Casey-Freakout. But instead, he skips watching the hockey game on tv and locks himself in his room until dinner. And at dinner, he doesn't make eye contact with her. Or tease her. Or throw any food at her. It's so weird and something is so blatantly off that even George picks up on his. When he asks Derek if everything's ok he just shrugs and doesn't answer. Nora looks at Casey like its her fault, and all Casey can do is shrug as if she doesn't know what's going on.

Because she doesn't. She doesn't have much time to dwell on it though, because after dinner her mom asks her to help Lizzie pack, and Casey focuses all her attention on that – color coded packing list, cross references, careful organization of everything. Roll the socks in balls so they don't get lost, fold the shirts just right so they don't wrinkle, shoes double-bagged and at the bottom.

So Derek was _supposed_ to help her with Liz and Edwin, but Casey finds herself helping Liz on her own, and then pretty much packing Edwin's stuff for him while he sits on his bed listening to music. Well, at least he's not in her way then. Casey's strangely relieved that Derek seems to have disappeared from the face of the Earth, because packing is enjoyable, and Derek would just ruin the fun by complaining and just throwing things into suitcases haphazardly. _God_. When will that boy learn to live life organized?

So Casey's night is going pretty well, and she's forgotten all about Derek and the Deed and everything really, and is sitting on the couch watching a movie when who should walk in the front door but Derek- with Emily hanging off his arm and giggling like Derek's the funniest guy in the world.

Well.

/

Hope that helped you guys get a sense for where this fic seems to be going!

Sorry to leave it at a cliff like that but I've always liked suspense:D


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